


Let Me Tell You The Song of This Town

by orphan_account



Category: The Ocean - Dar Williams
Genre: Curses, Dragons, F/M, Fantasy, Gen, Jukebox Challenge, Magic, Original Character(s), Original Fiction, Songfic, Witches, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-23
Updated: 2013-09-23
Packaged: 2017-12-27 10:26:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/977666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the witch Aohe comes across a strange isle in her travels, and rescues one of its inhabitants, she knows she must return. To see her friend again and to free him and his people from an ancient curse, whatever the price.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let Me Tell You The Song of This Town

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ViaLethe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ViaLethe/gifts).



> I want to thank ViaLethe for introducing me to a number of artists who I hadn't heard before, and have been enjoying the heck out of while writing this. I really hope you like it!
> 
> Also, I would like to thank Morbane and Broadcast Delay for the quick, thorough betas. Your suggestions were much appreciated and I hope I put them to good use! You rock!

* * *

“Hang on, I'll get you!” Aohe called out from over the water. 

She pulled in on Shilas' reins and the dragon's long sinuous body whipped around. They dove and swooped down at the jagged spur of rock that a helpless figure dangled from, scrabbling for purchase, right above a scrap of broken shoreline. 

“Grab my hand,” she yelled to the boy as she closed in. Aohe grasped the edge of the saddle with one hand, and reached out as far as she could with the other. With a raw palm, he took it, though he was bigger and heavier than she expected, and his full weight jerked them down. She clamped her knees on Shilas' sides and then used her other hand to yank him by his shirt over the front of the saddle. 

Shilas flew back up, trying to gather speed, but some strange force snapped them back toward the rocks, like the boy had an invisible rope around his waist. 

“Take me down! I can't leave,” cried the boy in alarm, as Shilas fought the tug. 

They turned back quickly, and the dragon set them down near the green fringe of the treeline, not far from the barren cliff and the wide blue expanse of the open ocean. The boy collapsed to his knees, and Aohe dismounted and crouched next to him. 

“Are you okay?” she asked, getting a better look at his face. He was a bit older than she'd originally thought, thirteen or fourteen, close to her own age, with warm golden skin and a halo of loose black curls on his head. Next to him she was as brown as a seal, and if unpinned, her hair would fall long and smooth, black as a river at night. His eyes reminded her of the ocean in the final moments of sunset, shining in amber and brown and black. She thought him quite handsome. 

“What is that?” he said, pointing a bit rudely at her large scaly companion, who, with his big, catlike maw and shimmering white hide probably could look threatening to the uninitiated. His kind didn't eat grass. 

“Oh, Shilas? He's an Eastern White Water Dragon and still a bit of a baby. Has a mind of his own, likes catching fish more than work, but we enjoy each other's company,” she explained, scratching Shilas' ruff, which made him purr and smile.

The boy just kept staring at them. “What are you doing here? I mean, thank you, but I've never seen-” 

“Oh, ah, well, we're on our way to deliver something for my teacher to his friend, and we were scouting for a place to rest. Sorry, telling you much more than that would get me in trouble. Though you might call me Aohe. How are you called?” she asked. He had an odd accent, but she understood him well enough and was pleased that he understood her.

“Call me Del. Are you a witch?” he asked, looking her up and down, from her enameled hairpins to the hems of her green silk trousers. 

She blinked, considering what he might mean, and whether it was meant pejoratively, then nodded. “That is close enough; the Sight is very strong in me, but my skill at turning it off is not so good, and my knowledge of my art is not so great yet, either.”

“I don't understand; no one comes here and no one leaves. The ships pass us like we're invisible.” 

“You are correct, and that barrier is curious, for the Sight is not such a rare gift. The curse on this place must be deep and take a trained eye to notice. Or, half-trained in my case. Say, shall we rest here on your beach? Shilas needs to hunt, and your home it seems is full of secrets,” she said and smiled. 

He grinned back, awkwardly, as if her happy expression woke in him the memory of how to do it himself. “It's not my beach, but I've earned a rest, I think. Not much to look at, but for rocks and water, though,” Del said, his dark eyes wary with wondering what she meant. 

“No, no, that's the best part,” she said. 

He couldn't know how much she loved the ocean, taking every opportunity she got to watch the heave and flow, the colors and changing light that shot and scattered across the water over the course of the day, to breathe in the salty air. Aohe had grown up in the malodorous, bustling sprawl of a city cut in two by a filthy, slow, winding old river. For her, the wide, wild ocean never ceased to fascinate in comparison.

When she asked him later why he had been on the cliff, he hesitated, and then sighed and explained. “It's going to sound like I was trying to kill myself. I wasn't. I only wanted to see if I could leap past the barrier,” he said. “I should have known better.”

“It makes sense to me. Anything that is confusing or strange, it's hard not to want to try and puzzle it out,” she said. 

They wandered together for hours, trading stories, exploring the odd corners of the shore, as far as Del's odd tether would let him travel. She wanted to ask him so much, tell him so much more, know everything about him, but there wasn't enough time. With the sun setting and her dragon fed, Aohe knew she had to go.

He didn't say the words, but when they came back around to her campsite and she began to pack her things, the smile he'd shyly offered began to fade. Everything in his demeanor begged her to stay. 

Aohe shook her head. “My wish is that this day could have lasted forever, but a promise to return will have to be enough. Not just to come again to visit, friend. You must be freed.” 

“I don't care about that. Tell me when.”

She could only offer a sad shrug. “When? Only the gods know.” The substantial debt she needed to work off with her teacher came first, and her studies were nowhere near complete. “But you will be on my mind."

* * *

Aohe did think about him quite a bit.

Especially in those small hours, when her studies were dry and hateful, and she wished she could complain to someone who would agree. 

No one needed to know so much of plants from the other side of the world, nor the spirits that thrived among them, how to call them, how to use them, how to send them away. She was more interested in the things to be found in the water than on the land, and missed the ocean.

Her stern and exacting teacher would have her know it all, however, before he moved onto the next subject he wanted her to learn.

Often lonely, she imagined the conversations she would have with Del about him and his other pupils - most of whom she could not afford to get too close to, and tried to avoid whenever possible. Her art was dangerous and competitive, and she feared losing her standing in the school if she trusted the wrong person with her secrets. She wanted to protect the little things that she had learned of that were hers alone, like the island and the boy she'd saved.

Del, she thought, if he was there she could tell him everything, and it wouldn't matter. He'd just listen.

* * * 

Tired from another long day tending his father's vines, his hands bandaged and sore from his adventure on the cliff, Del's thoughts went to Aohe as he laid down to sleep. He wondered where she had gone and what she was doing. Her life seemed so much more exciting, after all.

His own work consisted of a great many repetitive tasks that got him sunburned and dirty and interested him little. Until it came time to make the wine, the labor was really best forgotten.

A few weeks after Aohe left, he started to hear her whisper to him some nights, hear her night worries and wishes. He found this strangely calming, though he was sure they were only dreams. Just knowing she was out there, having troubles of her own, and thinking about him, helped him get past some of the worst days.

For example, his least favorite job was, by far, picking caterpillars off of the grape leaves. Confronted with a vines full of them even in his sleep, he'd wished that she'd return that instant and witch all their furry yellow backs away. Once she was there in the dream, she'd tease him for being so nervous over a few insects, but then smile and reassure him that she'd help out. For all her refinement , he discovered Aohe was comfortable with their pinching jaws and sticky little feet.

If only she could help with the real thing.

After few months, he didn't see her in his sleep her as often. Del began to wonder if their meeting had simply been a particularly vivid dream, or if he'd drunk too much wine once and hallucinated it all.

Only, he still had the scars on his hands from the day he'd almost fallen from the cliff. He knew she had been there, beautiful and impossible, with her rich clothes and complicated hair; with her dragon who could fly her anywhere in the world. Maybe she should have been a dream, but she really had walked that beach with him, and spoken of an existence beyond the island's impenetrable shore.

He told no one of Aohe, since they would think him mad, though on occasion a member of his family would ask what he was looking for when he stared out at the sky. Del couldn't say what he longed to see, who he hoped remembered him and his little, lost, nothing island.

One year and then another passed, and his hopes faded - but the dreams never completely did. 

* * *

When the time came that she could seek him out again - and it took much longer than she preferred - Del was there, sitting alone on the shore, a book and a bottle at his side. She was glad that this time he was not in mortal peril, though he did look terribly sad. 

She called out to him from above. Del snapped to attention, scrambling up, wildly searching the sky as if he'd been in a daze before that. As she approached he ran to meet them, ecstatic. Without hesitation, Aohe jumped down, and into Del's welcoming embrace. 

“Aohe, Aohe, I missed you, I missed you,” he said.

They laughed, and his tears soaked salt into the fabric of her winter gown as he spoke her name, her heart leaping to hear it. She knew she'd made the right choice, troublesome though it was to her elders.

In the passing of four years, Del had grown, and now stood a head taller than she, while his shoulders looked broader and his jaw more square; his beautiful eyes were the same, but his mouth had a bitter turn to it that told her of anticipation and disappointment: of a path worn from his father's vineyard to the beach where he'd go in the afternoon to watch the sky and curse the ocean and the ribbons of silver clouds for not being silver dragons. 

“I can't believe you came back,” he said, as they walked arm in arm along the shore. She stopped and tugged her soft slippers off, tossing them above the water line, where they blended in with the ragged gray-green stones of the shore. The rocks were cold and wet, and she let the chill soak in as she got a feel for the land. 

Behind them, Shilas made a great arcing leap and then disappeared with scarcely a splash into the water; he was a companion, not a pet, and would reappear when it suited him. She knew that he had misgivings about her decision. Shilas much preferred his comfortable lodgings in her teacher's house, after all, but he soon followed after when she made to leave without him.

“Did you forget my promise? Lies do not suit my kind, or me,” she admonished. Breaking her other promise was not a choice after all, and she had come when she could.

“No, no, that's not what I mean,” he said, following her to the edge. The ocean seemed in a gentle mood today, and coursed cold and astringent around Aohe's ankles as she moved forward, and then rolled back, gathering for the next surge. “You don't know how lucky you are that you can leave. I don't know why you'd return. I'm glad that you did, but Aohe-” 

She turned and pressed her fingers to his lips, and his eyebrows rose in surprise. “The luck is in that we met at all, Del. We'll find a way,” she said.

His was an odd island on the map her teacher had given her, when she asked, in that it didn't have a name; from the first time she'd seen it from above, it clearly had a population, every inch of land worked and changed by their hands. He was correct, though, that a normal mortal would not be able to see or approach it from the water, however. Her Sight was just strong enough that they were visible to her.

“A thousand men will try for the sea and fail, again and again, and bound we will still remain, that's what my grandfather told me. You'll forgive me if I have little hope of escape.”

She nodded in sympathy. “Old curses are overripe curses though, like peaches and plums set to rot in the sun, as my teacher would say. Your grandfather didn't know that, perhaps. Though, why would you go? This is a beautiful place – the ocean, the temple, the peaceful town above. Once settled, it would be hard to leave,” she suggested.

“Don't,” he said, as if she were playing some unfathomable game with him. She could see him already contemplating the agony of having to wait again if she left, and could see his desire for escape. 

“No, it's lovely to me, even if it has lost its charm in your eyes. But the boundaries are old. If we can just find the right spot, they can probably be broken. Or-” she paused, toeing at a piece of seaweed that had stuck to her other foot.

“Or what?”

“Have you found any clues, of why the curse exists?” She already had her suspicions, for it would take something very powerful to cast a curse on this scale, but the more she knew, the better their chance for success.

“Not much, just that one of my ancestors angered the sea god, Old Seb, and from that day on, none of us were allowed to leave the island, not even to fish. That's the story everyone tells.” 

The tale might be vague, but it was more than she'd had to work with before. Aohe nodded, and made her way over to a boulder that looked big enough for them both to sit on; once he settled next to her, she laid out what she knew.

“His name is shortened in your tale, but that must be Sebnamontai, the Dragon of the North Sea. He's cruel and cold by nature, and spiteful. From what little my teacher said of him, it wouldn't surprise me if he did something like this, though it would take a lot of provocation to get him to bother.”

“Who?” he asked, and looked at her like she'd just started spouting nonsense.

“The sea god whose quarter this is. He cursed your ancestors like this and you don't even know his proper name?” she said in disbelief, thinking it would have to be common knowledge here. No wonder they couldn't break the curse. Without asking the god himself, there was no way of knowing if they had forgotten out of their own carelessness, or if he had taken the memory of his name from them, so that they could not call on him at all.

Del shook his head. “I'm not familiar with such things. You see, I don't get off the island much.”

“Ah, well, sorry, that was inconsiderate of me. As long as one of us is aware and the other can learn, we can make up the difference,” she said, grinning up at him. She had so very much she wanted to teach, and to learn with him, too, though many of these were things that did not require books.

“Tell me, then, how knowing his name helps us?” 

“We can call him out and ask him to give up whatever petty grudge he's holding onto. If we don't ask before trying to destroy his work, and he notices the barrier is gone, he might become enraged,” she said. With such things as curses, it was best to go to the source and work from there.

“You can just ask? Why would he listen after so long?”

“That is true, he may not listen; it is up to him,” she said. “There is the chance, too, that he might attempt to destroy us simply for disturbing him. With the eldest sea dragons, it is written that it is best to be polite in excess and choose a time when the tides are weak.”

Del sat up straight from leaning close, his eyes wide with fear. “You mean he might kill us for no reason? I'm not sure that this is such a good idea. I didn't want you to come only to lose you.”

She put her hand over his and squeezed it, for there was nothing comforting in what she had to say. “He is of the ocean, and like it he is primal, a force of nature. If he were in a foul enough mood, he could call up waters to annihilate the island itself. We don't want that, so if you would that we attempt to break this curse that binds you and your people to this place, we will wait until the quarter moon, and practice our manners,” she said, trying to sound confident, though she had a chill in her belly too. 

“So my choices are a quick death by dragon or a slow death by boredom. I suppose dying either way wouldn't be so terrible as long as I was with you,” he said, leaning so they were eye to eye.

She smiled at his dark attempt at humor, and touched his face. “There are no guarantees in this proposal. We have three days to prepare, friend. But also, three days for you to show me why you so badly want me to stay at your side.”

* * *

Aohe had thought long about her return to the nameless island, which in her head she now referred to as Del's Island. She sometimes worried that the townspeople might not appreciate an outsider coming in, and disrupting the normal order of their lives. They might not all be restless like Del. 

If she simply wanted to make her home here, leaving the barrier intact would have suited her quite well as a witch. From within she would be hidden and protected from all but the strongest of her kind, and allowed to do her own quiet meditations of her art. But Del wanted to be free of it, to go where he might in the wide world, so she would not have it. 

She decided, too, that the townsfolk did not need to know of her plans until she either succeeded or failed. If she made a misstep in her attempt at breaking the curse, she intended that the consequences would fall squarely upon herself for interfering. The former she told Del; the latter, she did not. Hopefully he would not have to find out, though she would always have secrets; they were part and parcel of what and who she was. 

Originally, when they went to town, she had meant to keep to Del's father's small farm, but the rumors of a strange outsider woman traveled quickly.

She was approached by a small contingent of the town's council not long after she'd arrived; they asked her why she had come and if she planned to stay. As instinctively as Del had, they knew her for a witch, and again she did not deny it, nor did she make any show of power. 

“My interest in this place such as it is, is merely to visit my friend and to enjoy the ocean from these pristine shores. Perhaps my stay could end tomorrow, or it might last forever,” she said, trying to seem formidable, but not threatening, though she suspected she had failed.

Politely as they could muster, they offered her the use of a small empty house at the edge of town for the length of her stay, and made a request that she not harm anyone in their jurisdiction. If Del wanted to give her his time, he was a man grown and that was his own affair. 

Seeing that the source of this intervention was Del's own family, she took the council up on their offer. The stone hut they provided, while old and dusty, was quickly aired and outfitted to her liking. She made her own bed, and Del kept her company.

Soon, the day of the half-moon dawned and Aohe and Del went to the temple hand in hand - though not to make a pledge as any other couple might have been expected to do; as a witch, Aohe could not be bound by such customs, in any case. They crossed the cracked white marble floor, with its designs of dragons and dolphins, and took careful steps down the slippery, storm-worn stairs down to the water.

Above them, the sky was cast over with clouds that threatened rain, and the water below lashed and swept up to their feet, intensely cold. Aohe took her offerings from a small satchel, first throwing out into the water a handful of coins, and then a handful of dried jasmine; Del cast out a bottle of his father's best wine, letting the rare green glass shatter in the shallows. 

Their offerings made, Aohe called out over the sea in the sibilant tongue of dragons. 

“Glorious and formidable Lord and Master of the North Sea, Great Sebnamontai, come and hear our plea!”

They did not have to wait long for a response. Thunder crashed in the sky above and lightning forked across their vision, running cloud to cloud. Then the water itself rose and surged. A great wave hurled itself forward in their direction, faster than they could run from it.

Together, they were thrown to the back of the temple, soaked to the skin, shaken, but unharmed. Del got his bearings first, and helped her to stand, for she was weighed down and tangled in her cold, wet, silk gown. 

The first thing Aohe saw when she looked up were teeth, hundreds of them, each as long as her forearm, thin and pointed like needles, set in a massive black head. 

He had come.

Sebnamontai's breath was icy and smelled of sulfur and salt water. His eyes were huge and golden, slitted and cold like a lizard's, and his seaweed-colored scales were crusted with barnacles and coral. Along his massive back was a tall golden fin, ribbed with bone, the translucent skin punctured in places and tangled with clots of seaweed and algae. He held out his forearm in front of him, leaning on his elbow, like he was bored, talons curled, his other arm still in the water, along with most of the rest of his immense body.

“I accept your offering, witch, though why you would touch your feet to this poisonous isle, I cannot fathom,” he said in his own tongue, his voice as deep and penetrating as the roar of a waterfall. 

Aohe felt Del's hand tighten in hers. She would not be able to interpret for him through this; all she could do was stay calm and hope he did not call attention to himself. Sebnamontai was far more frightening than she had anticipated.

“Great god of the North Sea, I have seen that this insignificant scrap of earth has been cut off from the world, and it seems as though it was by your will,” she said, hoping she did not misspeak, even though she had been confident in her abilities before this moment.

From his throat came a gurgling laugh. “So it has. What is your interest in it?” he asked, the low rumble of his voice making her bones shake.

“I do not know why it was done, nor does a single inhabitant of this place remember. They do not remember who they are, nor even your name. I only see here an isolated tribe who could harm no one. Those who gave you reason to retaliate are long dead; is it truly worth your energy to maintain this curse?”

“Do you underestimate my power?” he growled, eyes flashing.

“Never! I am only curious why you bother, when you could have just as easily destroyed them,” Aohe said, standing her ground, though she was so terrified she did not know if she would be able to move if he attacked.

He grunted, and a spray of saltwater flew from his nostrils, some of it splashing them. “Words woven like a true student of Ashwin of Marth. You would make this hateful, barren island your home, then?” he asked, having seen deeper into her soul than she'd thought possible.

“I would, mighty Sebnamontai,” she said, careful not to disagree with him and feeling a chill in her gut; there was no possibility of backing out from this point.

“You would take responsibility for the wicked people here and uphold the old ways?”

Aohe nodded gravely. “I would see that you are given your due, and keep the rule of law, if that is your command, Great One,” she replied.

“It is, young witch. Though, if you would have their freedom, you may never leave this isle so long as you should live.”

She had expected something like this, a trade of sorts. “And the price would be paid by me only, Lord of the North Sea? No one would be bound to this place upon my passing?” she asked, knowing that if she did not make their bargain very clear he could interpret it as he wished later.

“Your children would not be so bound, should you have them, nor the dimwitted inhabitants of this ugly scrap. Nor your companion, though he seems eager enough to escape you,” he observed, raising one massive talon to point at Del.

Aohe nodded, and held his gaze though he tried to crush her with it. “I would not imprison those who wish to be free, Great One,” she replied.

The sea dragon made a wet throaty sound again, in what she guessed was a deep chuckle. “A cheeky witch, too. Pray you that the company of dragons and water and stone are enough, when you have lost your love to the sea.”

Shaking her head, she looked over at Del, who stared at her, wide-eyed and afraid, but steadfast. “My love already belongs to the sea. We are all of the ocean, and it gives and takes what it will. If we do not have your protection from it, I would ask at least for your indifference, great one.”

“Well said, but you know quite well that I am not indifferent. Keep the old ways and hold these unruly idiots accountable for what harm they inflict on the world, and you should not suffer much,” he said, and she understood this to be his final offer. She would have to tease out of him the reason for the curse another time.

Aohe bowed low. “You are truly as wise and great as the sages say, my Lord Sebnamontai. I will take on your bond, and keep the peace on this pitiful isle as you require,” she swore to him.

“So be it,” he roared, and then the great sea dragon withdrew from the temple, rising up from the water and into the air. The force of his massive green and black form rolling out of the water shook the island at it's foundations. It took effort for Aohe not to fall.

“What is he going to do?” Del asked, frightened, as plaster crumbled down on them from the ceiling.

Giddy at what she had just survived, Aohe laughed, covering her head, as they hurried out into the open air. It was raining, though not hard enough that staying in the unstable temple would have been preferable. 

“He's reminding your people that he exists, and that they are not forgotten. Oh, and you're free now, all of you are, to fish, to travel, to trade with the world. Though my skills belong to the island now, and to him,” she explained.

“I don't understand. You sold yourself to that monster?” he asked, horrified.

“If you wish to see it that way. The bargain was not made lightly,” she said, pained that he didn't accept her sacrifice, and she began to wring water out of her skirts. Sebnamontai would not have dealt with her if he didn't value what she had to offer, or believe that she would keep her word, but she couldn't expect Del to understand the ways of dragons – nor should she expect him to know those of witches.

“But, I thought- I had hoped we'd go away from here together,” he said, finally. 

“It cannot be so. Let me be your fixed star, if you choose to go, should you choose to have me. Come,” Aohe said, taking his hand. “We have much work to begin.” Above, she could see Shilas chasing Sebnamontai's lengthy tail, and wondered if he had heard all that she promised. She hoped he'd stay, though if he wasn't careful, the larger dragon would swallow him whole.

Even though she knew she would never leave this place again, she couldn't help feeling satisfied with herself. She had a place, she had a purpose – and she would always have the ocean.


End file.
